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questionably nonhuman” (Shostak 34).
By fixating just on the breast that he’s become, Kepesh is now no
longer human. Yet, unlike the monsters depicted in the Old English The
Wonders of the East, he acquires the one characteristic that it omits –
he becomes a starkly feminine symbol of nourishment and humanity.
The significance of this metamorphosis is perhaps understood best if we
consider how this text would be translated back to Old English. How
easy would the conversion of the conveniently “ungendered” words that
Kepesh uses be? Considering that possessive nouns in Old English are
gender-specific, and the male protagonist turns into a female anatomical
part, what gender would every instance of his new “my” now take
following this transformation?
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